


Hazardous Hibernation

by cutsycat



Series: Cutsycat's Bangs [5]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 06:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18888667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Tony always talks about vacationing to sunny places. His actual vacations, however, completely snow filled. That wasn't unusual, though, what was unusual was the turn this vacation took. Can Tony figure out what is going on? Or is he doomed to follow the other victims?





	1. Snowstorm

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the reverse bang on [lj](https://ncis-bang.livejournal.com/82278.html).
> 
> The art I picked was:  
> 
> 
> It was done by the amazing [Red_Pink_Dots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Pink_Dots/works?fandom_id=951). 
> 
> Her art post is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18674050).
> 
> Big thanks to [jane_x80](http://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_x80/pseuds/jane_x80) for betaing. I updated it after they betaed, so any mistakes are mine.

Tony cursed as the snow started coming down harder. He already knew it was below freezing outside and he had zero desire to exit his vehicle until he had somewhere warm to enter instead. The sunny paradise he’d described to his coworkers when he told them he was taking a week off was sounding even better now and he regretted that he hadn’t actually gone there for his vacation. 

Unfortunately, his other form would stand out too much at the beach. White just didn’t blend well in yellow sand. Heck even if it was a rock beach, he wouldn’t blend in well. 

He’d hoped to beat the snow to his destination knowing that he needed the snow for cover. After all, where better for a white cat to blend in than a blanket of white where he was just one more white thing? Apparently, his luck was striking again, however, and instead it looked like he was going to get stuck in a veritable blizzard before he ever made it to his destination. 

Tony continued to do his best to drive through it, hoping against hope that he’d make it to the cabin he’d rented before the snow became thick enough that his vehicle literally couldn’t move. Of course, the snow was already so thick that he could barely see 500 feet in front of him, forcing him to slow the truck down.

He was still a good 2 hours out from his destination and he knew this was a bad sign. The chance of making it to the lodge safely dimmed with each passing minute as the snow continued to fall and showed no signs of letting up or actually allowing him to see the pavement in front of him. Between the 5-6 inches of snow on the road by now and the decreased visibility, Tony finally gave up and pulled the truck off to the side of the highway to wait out the blizzard.

He hoped that it wouldn’t last long and he’d be able to continue on his way soon. This was a rental truck, so he had no idea what kind of supplies it had. He’d made sure that they put the winter road kit in that the company provided, but he doubted that that had any food or water in it. 

He had some leftover peanuts from his flight and he’d made sure to pick up a full water bottle on his way out of the airport. He’d known that the partial he’d had from the flight wouldn’t be enough, but if he ended up stuck here for days there was no way what he had would be enough water to survive. At least the gas tank was full, so keeping the heat going shouldn’t be an issue. 

He’d called the lodge to let them know he was on his way and what route he planned to take, so he knew someone would eventually come looking for him. Hopefully, they would be in time. If the blizzard got bad, no one at NCIS knew where he was, so they wouldn’t even realize if he ended up in trouble. 

Well not unless he could get a phone call through, which wasn’t looking promising right now as his phone blinked no signal at him. Technically, Gibbs had the ability to find out where he was. He’d left behind his standard instructions that only Gibbs would be able to decipher that would eventually lead to the information of where he was planning to vacation. 

It was a system that they’d set up back when there were only two of them on the team and downtime was few and far between, but still sometimes needed. Tony didn’t know what Gibbs did during his downtime and Gibbs didn’t know what he did, but they both recognized that it was a private time for each other and did their best to respect it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always possible.

Gibbs consistently took time towards the end of February and it was very rare that it would have to be interrupted, but it had happened. Tony’s vacations were not as consistent since he just needed to go somewhere there was snow. Different parts of the year meant different locales to visit to find snow, but it wasn’t a big deal.

However, he needed to vacation at least once a year to let his white panther side out or he chanced losing control of it unexpectedly. Nobody had quite figured out what would happen if one didn’t indulge one’s shifter side, mostly because a person’s body forced the switch before anyone could figure out what the actual effects of not shifting were besides involuntary transformation. No one at NCIS actually knew that Tony was a shifter and he hoped to keep it that way, but that meant he needed to take periodic “vacations” to snowy lands to let his cat side run wild for a bit.

He’d actually been pushing it this time. He was kind of surprised he hadn’t been forced to switch already. He’d planned to take a vacation three months ago, but well Gibbs had run off to Mexico and when he’d come back he’d been so different that Tony hadn’t even considered taking a vacation until Gibbs was better. 

Gibbs wasn’t really better, now, but Tony couldn’t afford to wait any longer and Gibbs appeared to mostly remember things even if his behavior was still less than normal. It was only a week, surely things couldn’t get that bad in a single week. Though looking around at the absolute white that surrounded him and showed no signs of stopping, Tony couldn’t help wondering if this was just a sign of things to come.

He was beginning to realize that he hadn’t really come prepared for the weather. He had a few sweatshirts and a winter jacket and that was pretty much it for his human self. He’d been planning to spend the vast majority of the week in his white panther form.

This retreat didn’t know him from Adam and he was happy to play the recluse to its fullest extent to get some time in his shifted form. Of course, getting stuck in the rented truck in the middle of a blizzard had not been in his plans. He could shift, but a white cat stretched out in the backseat would be even more suspicious than a human male in the driver’s seat. 

Granted the chance of someone even seeing the truck was pretty slim, right now. He hoped that he got to the cabin soon. He didn’t want a repeat of the last time he’d gone too long without shifting where he’d ended up stuck as a panther for a good two weeks because his body needed a good recharge before it would even let him think about becoming human again.

Seriously, being a shifter sucked. What good was it? It’s not like he could chase down a suspect better or anything. It just made his life more complicated.

Tony glanced at his watch and sighed when he realized that it had been two hours since he’d pulled the car off to the side of the road due to the blizzard. There were still no signs of it stopping. He considered turning the engine off to conserve fuel, but he was afraid if he did that that it wouldn’t start up again once the blizzard was over. 

Not to mention if he turned off the engine the temperature in the truck would drop. He hated the cold, as did his panther, which was supremely annoying giving the damn cat needed snow to blend in. Freezing wasn’t the only consideration, however. It was also possible that the exhaust could get clogged with all the snow which would turn the truck into a death trap. Tony really hoped that didn’t happen.

While he could handle the cold better transformed, it would attract way too much attention for a big white panther to be wandering the area. He wouldn’t even be able to change into his shifted form and then change back long enough to check in to the cabin because he couldn’t bring anything with him when he changed shapes. Fortunately for Tony’s sanity, as worst case scenarios ran through his head, the white suddenly started to clear up.

Now, Tony just hoped that they’d included a shovel or something in this truck, so that he could dig his way out and get on the road again. The blizzard wasn’t completely over, but it was clearly starting to slow down and he could see more than just white again which he considered to be a plus. At least, the truck was a 4 wheel drive and the winterization kit was guaranteed to have snow tires and chains if needed, so once the snow was down to a passable height he would be fine. 

He only had another hour or so to go to get to the lodge, so hopefully once the blizzard cleared up he would be able to quickly finish his journey and not have to worry about dealing with going out again until it was time to leave. Or rather not have to deal with the complications of going out again as a human. He was just glad that this wasn’t going to be a multiple day blizzard.

He’d been getting pretty close to going stir crazy and contemplating some drastic things to relieve his boredom. He wasn’t quite home free, yet, but just seeing the sky again gave him a huge feeling of relief. Tony couldn’t wait to get to the lodge and get checked in.

The lodge was supposed to have some pretty awesome winter trails that he couldn’t wait to try out as a panther. Of course, he should have known better than to think things would go smoothly. First, even though the snow wasn’t coming down hard anymore, he still had to get things clear enough that he could drive again. 

He had a sweater and his winter jacket on and that first step still sent freezing cold skittering down his spine as he shivered. The cold seeped into his very bones, quickly making it feel like his entire body was encased in a block of ice despite having a sweater and his winter jacket on. This was going to make shovelling a huge pain.

Also, the risk for hypothermia increased like a hundred times when it was this cold outside, which was nothing to sneer at given his lungs. You’d think being a shifter would give him some increased abilities that would prevent his lungs from getting scarred, but no instead his two forms behaved like they were completely separate from each other. A wound sustained in one would not affect the other, but by the same token the wound would not heal unless he remained in the form he received it in and got treatment for it either.

It sucked. In general, he preferred to just be human as he saw no benefit to being a cat, especially not since he needed to keep that form a secret. Turning into a white panther while warmer would do nothing to get his truck back on the road. 

He searched the truck for a shovel or anything that would work to help clear snow out of the way. Each movement heavy and laden as the cold weighed him down. He knew he needed to keep moving if he was going to be outside for very long.

A Tony popsicle wouldn’t help anything. He frowned as he realized that the cold weather kit they’d provided was almost less than useless. They’d only provided the winter tires, which were already on the vehicle, and snow chains, nothing that would help him dig himself out of this mess. 

They’d given him the standard winter kit, but he’d hoped with a storm on the way they’d have thrown something else in to help get out of a snowy situation. No such luck. He’d have to have words with them about this, perhaps a strongly worded suggestion would not go amiss on a review.

He hadn’t thought to grab a shovel or kitty litter or anything, simply wanting to get to the lodge as fast as possible before the storm hit. Now, he was in trouble. The rental truck was absolutely bare except for his luggage and the chains.

He was about ready to start scrounging through his two bags in hopes that he could find something that he could repurpose to help when someone drove up in a vehicle next to him. “Need some help?”

Well actually calling it a vehicle was a bit of a stretch. It was more of a snowmobile. “That would be great. I’d like to get to the lodge as soon as I can.”

“You’re going to Sweet Water Inn?”

“Yep. Why?”

”That’s where I’m headed. Grab whatever you can carry with you. We’ll take the snowmobile.”

“What about my truck?”

“Don’t worry about it. We can come back for it when the weather is better.”

“Are you sure, …” Tony trailed off hoping the guy would fill in his name.

“Adam. Adam Birmington.” 

“Nice to meet you, Adam. I’m Tony. Are you sure? I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”

“It’s no problem. I work at the lodge. This happens all the time when we get out of towners.” The guy flashed him a smile.

Tony grinned back. “Thanks, man.”

He turned back to his truck and grabbed his duffel. That should contain most of what he needed. It wasn’t quite a go bag, but had most of the same equipment. The second bag he’d brought mostly contained his portable dvd player and some movies that he had figured he could watch in his cabin while he lounged around as his cat self when he got bored of being outside. The movies wouldn’t look the same when he was in his panther form, but you could still tell what was happening.

The snowmobile was built for the mess of snow currently on the roads and they had no trouble making it to the lodge. Of course, the snowmobile ride did nothing to help the freezing cold that Tony was experiencing. In fact, it made it worse.

Traveling at fast speeds in the freezing cold without the appropriate clothes would do that to you. By the time Adam dropped Tony off at the check in desk, Tony could barely move; he was shivering so hard. Adam helped him into the lodge and left him with Betsy, who immediately called their emergency medical staff and set about warming him up by handing him a mug of hot chocolate and wrapping him up in a blanket.

The lodge had EMTs on staff since they could never guarantee whether anyone could make it up the mountain in an emergency. It didn’t take them very long at all to arrive. While they started looking over Tony to see if he needed to go to a hospital, Betsy started checking Tony in to the cabin. 

Fortunately, it was determined that while Tony was extremely cold, he didn’t actually have hypothermia and just needed to warm up a little. Leaving him with the emergency blanket and instructions to stay indoors, the emergency team left him to Betsy’s tender mercies. She immediately turned on him and hissed, “Are you an idiot?”

“No.” Tony grumbled, still shivering, but able to be understood.

“Then why didn’t you bring clothes more appropriate to winter? You knew there would be snow here.”

“I wasn’t expecting to need them.” Tony didn’t bother mentioning that he’d planned to spend his time as a white panther and wouldn’t have needed them then.

“Idiot.” She muttered under her breath. “What size are you?”

“Why?” Tony watched her warily, surprised his natural charm wasn’t working on her.

“I’m going to get you some proper clothes from the gift shop while you stay there and warm up.”

Tony rolled his eyes and huddled under the blankets. He just wanted to go to his cabin and be left alone. He couldn’t help imagining Gibbs being here and some more fun ways to warm up. 

Unfortunately, not only was Gibbs not here, but he would kill him if he knew about Tony’s feelings. There was no doubt in Tony’s mind that Gibbs was straight as an arrow. The man had had four wives, after all.

Of course, before he could go to his cabin, he needed Betsy to return and finish checking him in. Plus, he had no idea which cabin was his and had zero desire to wander around the snow for an extended period of time looking for it when someone could easily show him where it was. Mostly, he missed Gibbs. 

Not the Gibbs that they’d had for the last 3 months, but the Gibbs from before that. The one who knew him inside and out and who thought he was good even when no one else did. Huffing in frustration, he wondered how long it would take Betsy to return.

He hoped that the cabin had heat. While his white cat self would be fine, he’d prefer human him to not hate it as well. He had all the intentions in the world of pretending to be a recluse and spending most of his time in his panther form, but you never knew when you’d need to be human for some reason. 

He really wanted Betsy to return, so that he could get to his cabin. He was absolutely bored waiting for her, which meant that his mind kept drifting to Gibbs. He’d considered inviting Gibbs to come with, except Shepard had been pretty pissed at his taking time off. He couldn’t imagine what she would do if Gibbs had taken vacation as well.

Of course, even if he’d been willing to face Sheppard’s wrath, he couldn’t invite Gibbs along as Gibbs didn’t know about his white cat self and the whole point of this trip was to let his panther out. Where the hell was Betsy? For that matter, where was his duffel?

His other luggage was still in the truck, but he’d brought the duffel with him on the snowmobile ride. However, he hadn’t seen where Adam put it. He hoped it was easy to find as he’d want things from it if he had any hope of actually having dinner. 

Finally, Betsy returned placing a bag full of warm clothes next to Tony. “They may not all fit as I had to use my best guess, but they should be better than what you have.”

“Thanks,” Tony smiled very slightly, still wanting to get to his cabin more than anything. Plus, he didn’t want to flirt with Betsy and perhaps encourage her to check up on him during his stay. While he’d done the snow vacation and spent time as a cat a number of times, he was beginning to think he’d chosen the wrong destination. 

The people here seemed too friendly. He wondered if he would be left alone, at all. Fortunately, it appeared Betsy didn’t see the need to keep him any longer. 

Smiling brightly, she handed him the keys to the cabin, “You’re all checked in. Just let us know if you need anything else.” 

“Do you know what happened to my duffel?”

“Oh, Adam took it. He should have put it in your cabin.”

Tony nodded. “Which way to my cabin?”

“Oh. Let me get someone to take you to it.” Betsy quickly called someone over to show Tony to his cabin.

He couldn’t believe it was already evening. He’d wanted to get the rest of his stuff from the truck, but while his white panther could move in the night it would stand out more and he knew it would be better to wait until morning. 

He hated to do that, but needs must. He hadn’t had dinner, but before he could decide whether it was better to go to bed without dinner, scrounge in his duffel for something, or check out the diner options offered at the lodge a knock sounded on his door. He opened the door to find Betsy there with a tray. 

“You need to eat.”

“Do you do this for all your guests?” Tony couldn’t help asking.

“No. Now eat up.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at her and sighed feeling like he’d somehow inherited a mother hen and wondering what impact this would have on his ability to spend time in his big cat form.

“I’ll pick up the tray in the morning or you can bring it over and drop it off at the diner if you prefer.”

Tony nodded. Betsy waved at him cheerfully as she headed back to the lodge. Tony shook his head.

He couldn’t fault the service at Sweet Water Inn. Normally that would be a good thing, but when he wanted privacy it really wasn’t. Still, he was hungry and settled down to eat the meal they’d provided.

As soon as the sun rose the next day, Tony in his white panther form snuck out of his cabin and headed for the truck still stuck in the snow a ways down the road. He found the truck easily, his white cat form blending into the white snow as he loped down the road. The roads were practically impassable and he saw no traffic on his way to the truck.

However, despite the lack of traffic, there had clearly been someone down here. The footprints around his truck were practically a neon sign that someone else had been there. Enough snow had come down as they left that there was no way it could have been his or Adam’s footprints from before.

He was disappointed to lose his dvds and player, but they were relatively easy to replace. He just wondered who would be venturing out in the snow and breaking into the truck to take his bag and nothing else. It hadn’t even been a full day since he’d left it.

No one should have even known where it was except him and Adam. This was super suspicious. Were they having a rash of burglaries in this town or did someone just stumble across his bag and decide they got lucky? Or was this targeted at him and they’d specifically been looking for his stuff?

In which case, why did they want his stuff? Sure he liked his movies, but they weren’t the kind of things that someone usually found worth stealing. He supposed the portable dvd player would fetch a decent price, but he still couldn’t figure out any motive for this.

Still, as a white panther Tony couldn’t exactly call the police about it and he didn’t want to venture down by foot to his vehicle, so that he could call the police. Well that’s assuming he could even get a signal. 

He hadn’t had any when the blizzard had been happening. Maybe he could make a call when he got back to his cabin. He actually wasn’t sure if the cabins had cell signal, though they had wifi so he should be able to do a wifi call from there.

He wanted to call Gibbs, but after Mexico they just didn’t have that kind of relationship anymore. Tony growled and shook his head at himself as he took off back to the cabin. Running faster and more urgently than he had on his way to the truck. 

After all, the same person could be at his cabin, right now, if he was a target. He didn’t want to call Gibbs and worry him about nothing. He knew Gibbs would want the details as soon as he called, so he’d have to do some investigation to figure out what was up before he would chance phoning Gibbs.

Bounding through the snow, he made it back to the cabin in record time. He badly needed more time in his white panther form, but he had to determine if he was being targeted first. He padded around the cabin slowly, relieved to see that no one appeared to have entered or exited it since he left. 

He wished he could just stay in this form for the rest of his vacation, but unfortunately there were times where opposable thumbs were needed. He used his paw to press the power button to turn the TV on, which happened to come onto a news channel complete with a story about a dead petty officer being found on one of the hiking trails. He’d intended to change back to a human and get some dinner for himself and his cat form, but the news stopped him cold.

This could be the excuse he needed to contact Gibbs and get him to come out. Though if it was only a single petty officer, it probably wouldn’t be enough to convince Jenny to let Gibbs leave. Tony huffed out a breath of air as he curled up on the couch and watched the news to see if they said anything that would help him when he went to investigate.

Investigating this crime would undoubtedly require a lot more time spent as a human than he’d originally planned for this trip. He didn’t know what he was going to do about indulging his big cat side. He knew he had to spend some amount of time in it or it would become uncontrollable, but he doubted the few hours he’d spent travelling to the truck and back would be enough. 

He’d transformed in his apartment before, but reserved that for emergencies as it really didn’t give his panther the space it wanted and seemed to result in needing to transform more frequently than if he was allowed to truly indulge his white cat for days on end. Unfortunately, it was beginning to look like his vacation would not be as indulgent as he’d planned. He just hoped that this didn’t have serious repercussions for him when he returned to the office.


	2. Gibbs arrives

He’d wanted to tell Gibbs about his panther side for a while, but he just hadn’t been able to work up the courage. Shifters were so rare that they weren’t even talked about. Sure you could find some references in the deepest darkest reaches of the netherweb, but person to person, practically unheard of.

On top of that, Gibbs had always struck him as a down to earth man, notwithstanding the creepy mustache that he’d been wearing since he got back from Mexico. Tony wasn’t sure if Gibbs would even believe him. He could always show the transformation, but he didn’t want to completely shock the man.

He was still interested in him and wanted an actual relationship despite the fact that he was sure it would never happen. Tony’s ears perked up as he heard crunching coming towards his cabin. Given the cabin next to him was currently unoccupied there was a high chance that whoever was coming was looking for him.

Changing back to his human self, Tony gave himself a once over to make sure his clothes looked correct and there weren’t any signs of his cat still showing. He’d made the mistake of not checking one time in boarding school and had been laughed at for the entire day because of his “fake” cat ears. He’d learned his lesson, though, and made sure to verify every time now.

The lesson had been reinforced even in his adult life, though thankfully less humiliatingly. Mostly he caught the bits of cat still showing before anyone else did due to his caution. He knew he still needed the verification, though as he’d found cat ears or a cat tail hanging around multiple times especially when he’d gone so long without shifting like he had this time.

When the knock sounded at his cabin door, Tony slowly made his way over to the door wondering who it could be. He blinked in surprise to see Adam on the other side of the door holding his other luggage bag. “Adam?”

“Tony. I had to go down past your truck and decided to pick up the rest of your things for you.”

“Thanks.” Tony scratched the back of his head not sure what else to say. The man had essentially broken into his rental truck, but he was returning his items? Tony didn’t understand what was going on.

“I hope you can put those movies down long enough for me to see you on the slopes one of these days.”

Tony held back his cringe at the fact that Adam had gone through his stuff and responded a touch stupidly instead, “Slopes?”

“Yep. I’m the ski and snowboard instructor. I also double as the snowmobile instructor as well. I think you’d enjoy the snowmobile races we do every Friday.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Adam nodded and left. Tony closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. He had to remind himself that there was probably an innocent reason behind what just happened.

He just had no idea what it could be. Adam gave off all the indications of a genuinely helpful guy. As a cop before NCIS, Tony usually had a pretty good sense when people were hiding things and he hadn’t gotten that feel from Adam.

Trying to brush the meeting off, Tony set up his DVD player and picked a movie to watch. He’d seen enough news for now. Anything new would replay in the evening anyway. 

He couldn’t help feeling off balance. The question lingered in his mind, was Adam flirting with him? Yes, Tony was completely gone on Gibbs, but that was never going to happen. 

Could he get over Adam going through his things enough to have some fun with him? Tony didn’t know. Why was he even thinking about this? 

That wasn’t what he was here for. He needed to spend his time in cat form not exploring a short vacation fling. He started the movie up and settled in to watch it in his panther form hoping it would be distracting enough to keep his thoughts away.

He couldn’t decide if he should take the day to lounge around the cabin in his cat form or if he should head for the hiking trail the petty officer had supposedly been found on and start investigating. He missed probably a good quarter of the movie as he fought with himself over what was the better plan for the day. When the movie ended, the big cat pressed the power button on the remote and slunk off the couch he had been laying on. 

He needed to run anyway. He might as well take the hiking trail the petty officer had used. Maybe he could find something out without changing back into a human. 

He just hoped the hiking path was not too heavily traveled. While he would blend in with the snow, he was still visible up close. He would have to keep to the shadows when humans were around.

He hated it. He wished he didn’t have to hide and that he could just run free, but he knew the consequences of letting humans see him. The only reason he’d managed to escape the last person that had captured him in panther form is that they hadn’t been prepared for a human.

They’d made the mistake of keeping him in a cage that while impossible for a big cat to get out of was easy for a human to escape. Still, he didn’t want a repeat of that. He’d much prefer to avoid detection entirely. 

Fortunately, as a panther he didn’t actually have to travel the trail itself. He could wind his way in and out of the brush surrounding the trail without a sound. Moving silently was one thing his cat was better at than his human self.

It was time to learn the layout of this area. A map had been provided with the stuff he got when he checked in, but it didn’t hold a candle to a true mental map. What his cat learned, his human self knew too. 

He learned best by exploring an area himself anyway. He didn’t want to take any well traveled paths. Fortunately, his cabin butted up against the snowy woods surrounding one of the mountain paths.

Tony took off for the woods, easily covering the distance in his cat form. It didn’t give him the best view of the path, but it kept him mostly hidden which was by far the most important part. He continued to follow the path keeping his senses alert despite eating up the distance like it was nothing.

He didn’t want to miss any clues or even worse be spotted himself. He slowed down as he heard a noise ahead. His hearing was a lot better as a cat than a human, so there should be little chance of being spotted if he was careful.

He paused and found a hole in the underbrush to look through. He wanted to identify the source of the noise before proceeding further forward. He blinked in surprise when he realized there was no one on the path. 

Where had the noise come from then? Tony looked around slowly, listening intently, trying to find the source of the noise. There.

Tony’s head swiveled to stare in the direction the noise came from. If he’d been in his human form, he would have blinked. Adam?

What was he doing? Oh. There were others too. Tony noticed a lot of skiers. 

This must be one of the classes on the slopes that Adam had been talking about. They weren’t a threat. No one was even looking his way. 

They certainly made a bunch of noise, though. He’d have to be careful to make sure their noise wasn’t covering up someone else. It shouldn’t be a big concern, however, as his sense of smell was also better than that of his human form, but still Tony moved slowly through the woods mirroring the path, pausing every few minutes to check that the path was still clear.

He soon found the crime scene where the dead petty officer had been found. It was pretty obvious given the tape that Tony assumed was yellow. He couldn’t actually tell the color properly in this form. 

The petty officer had been removed by now, though the stench of dried blood still lingered in the air. Tony assumed the local medical examiner had the body and had already finished the autopsy or was in process of doing one. Tony wasn’t sure who was in charge of the local investigation, but most of the crime scene had already been cleaned up. 

Still perhaps there was something that they missed. Tony padded slowly around the crime scene. In this form, it would just look like local wildlife and no one would suspect anything. 

So long as the path remained clear he could investigate and no one would be any the wiser. Though whether there were any clues left to be found, he had no idea. 

Wait. What was that? Tony nosed a strand of rope. Where did that come from?

Tony grabbed the rope with his teeth and loped back to his cabin. This would need more investigation, but he couldn’t do it as a cat. He hated to miss out on needed panther time, but some things were more important.

He kind of wanted to call McGee and have him hack the police department or sheriff’s office or whatever it was that would be handling the petty officer to see what he could find out for him. Not that Tony couldn’t find the information himself, but he’d gotten used to having McGee do it for him. Still if he called McGee he would have all sorts of questions that Tony didn’t want to answer.

Better if he did it himself this time. It would just take more time. Did he even bring his computer on this trip?

He hadn’t been planning to work and it was generally safer to leave government property on government property unless it was needed. Also, the laptop was a lot harder to operate as a cat. At least the portable dvd player could pretty much be set up, hit go, and then you wouldn’t need hands again until dvds had to be switched. Technically, he could work from anywhere. He just had to download the software on whatever computer he found that would let him connect to his NCIS machine. 

The government preferred people not do that on computers that others would have access to, but if it had to be done it was possible. The same software he downloaded to connect had a command that would wipe all evidence of the software and anything he did with it off the computer. Still he hoped that he’d actually packed his personal laptop, at least. It would make things much easier.

Tony finally got back to his cabin. He waited until he was inside and the door was closed before he transformed into his human form. He was alone, so he didn’t bother to check if he had cat bits just headed straight for his bag to see if he’d brought his laptop with him.

He found the laptop easily and breathed a sigh of relief. Then he realized that it was in the bag that Adam had brought. Tony cursed under his breath as he booted up the device.

Before he could attempt to connect to NCIS, he would have to run the cleaning program to make sure no one had messed with the laptop. Hopefully, Adam hadn’t touched it, but the program would tell him for sure. He was supposed to check the outside too, but he didn’t have the equipment for that, so he really hoped that the laptop hardware was free of bugs.

Nothing looked off from his quick overview, but anything could have been done to the insides of the laptop and he wouldn’t notice without opening it up. Still without the tools there wasn’t much he could do about that. He’d just have to hope for the best. 

Despite computer improvements, the thing still seemed to take forever to boot up, but it was finally ready for Tony to sign in. Of course, once the sign in completed it still took a few minutes for it to connect to wifi and get to a state where he could actually run the cleaning program. Technically, he could run the cleaning program without wifi, but this computer wasn’t kept on all the time so it was just easiest to turn on wifi and have it update before running.

Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually connected to NCIS using this laptop. He cringed as the results of the cleaning program started running across his screen. As this was his personal computer, he tended to be a bit more lax with what he let websites and programs do as it was just easier.

Of course, the cleaning program didn’t agree and got rid of all the tracking cookies and other goodies that websites tended to leave behind if you weren’t careful. Because of this, it was actually next to impossible for Tony to tell if someone had messed with his laptop or not as he didn’t regularly clean it of malware and the other things that the cleaning program did. Finally, though the cleaning program reported that the system was clean and approved for access to NCIS. 

That required opening up another program so that he could connect to the NCIS system. It was super annoying. He wished he could just poke the police or whatever database without doing this, but unfortunately it was easier to do this then to try and do what he needed without going through the NCIS routes.

After jumping through many hoops, Tony finally had access to search for the case that he’d seen on TV. Hopefully, this would give him the information he needed to determine what to do next about the case. Rope wasn’t really much to go on especially as whoever had originally been in charge of the scene hadn’t even deemed it important enough to bag up as evidence.

However, when he combined the rope with the other characteristics of the crime and ran a search to find other cases that might be similar, he was surprised by the number of results that came back. Usually when he ran these kind of searches for crimes the MCRT was working there were a few results at best and all kind of far fetched. Here, he had a good twelve results that looked plausible for being done by the same person and that was just in the first page of search results. 

Tony changed back into his cat form and paced the room growling. How could the people here just let this go on? Didn’t they see the connections? Were they really that inept?

His results had included two other petty officers which was more than enough to actually get Gibbs and NCIS involved though perhaps still not enough to sway Shepard into sending Gibbs out, but he’d leave that issue to Gibbs to resolve. Right now, he needed to figure out how to package the information up nicely for Gibbs to use as ammunition if he needed to. He really wished he had the ability to print out documents.

He wanted to start taking these cases apart one by one to find the common connections beyond what he’d already found and see if he could actually figure out what had attracted the serial killer to each of these people. He’d be printing out every case file if this were an actual NCIS case, but he just didn’t have the ability to do that in this remote location. His supplies were limited. 

He didn’t even have a stack of index cards he could write on or anything like that. Tony roared in frustration and then hung his head and hoped that the cabins were relatively sound proofed. He didn’t need any nosy busy bodies rushing to his cabin and seeing a cat.

Of course, that was when a knock at the door sounded. Tony had been too distracted to hear the approaching footsteps even in his panther form. He sighed and changed back to human, giving himself a once over to make sure there were no cat parts visible.

Tony opened the door surprised to find Adam on the other side. He’d just seen him teaching a bunch of skiers. How did he get here so fast?

Had Tony really lost that much time? “Adam?”

“I’ve come to see if you’re ready to ski or snowboard. A new beginner’s class is starting in about 10 minutes and then there will be the snowmobile races after.” 

”Why?”

“I like you. Plus, we’ve found that more people participate in activities if they know they’re going on.”

“So you push activities on people like candy on kids?”

“Come on, that makes us sound immoral. We’re not that bad. We just want to encourage participation and make sure everyone at the resort is having fun.” Adam winked.

Tony sighed. He had definitely picked the wrong place to vacation if he wanted solitude to spend time in his animal form. He couldn’t decide if it was better to give in now or politely decline. 

He had a bad feeling that if he turned Adam down, Betsy would be the one here next. He didn’t really want to deal with her no nonsense attitude. Also, who knew who would come after her?

This was really not turning into the vacation he expected. He still needed to call Gibbs and get him to help him out. He could do a lot alone, but three petty officers probably killed by the same person was too much to rest solely on his shoulders. 

”Well you can stop worrying about me, I’m perfectly happy in my cabin alone,” Tony tried. He really hoped that it would convince the resort to leave him in peace.

It would be even more difficult to investigate with people poking their nose in his business than to deal with the same as a cat. Tony really wasn’t looking forward to this. Though, maybe once Gibbs got here he could get them to lay off since he wouldn’t be alone anymore.

As if reading his thoughts, Adam protested, “But you’re alone. That’s no fun. Come on, I promise the skiing lesson will be super easy. I’ve taught lots of beginners.”

“I’m sure that’s true, but I’ll have to pass this time. Maybe next time.”

“Well if you won’t come for the skiing lessons, at least come for the snowmobile races starting in 2 hours.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Adam grinned brightly. “That’s not a no. See you there.”

Tony shook his head and closed the door as Adam left, presumably to return to his beginner skiers. Before doing anything else, Tony decided to call Gibbs. 

He really needed better supplies if he was going to figure this out on his own. There was no way he could trace 12 people’s steps by himself. A cursory look at the victims hadn’t revealed any connections, so a deep dive was required. 

Actually doing that deep dive was going to be time consuming and difficult, especially with the now expected frequent interruptions due to the lodge staff. Maybe Gibbs would have an idea how to handle that as well. The guy definitely took bastard to new heights regardless of whether he had his memories back or not.

Still he knew he was going to get some ribbing for this, he never called his boss when he was on vacation. It was always his boss calling him in, not the other way around unless his boss was on vacation and he was working in the office. Still it had to be done, Tony dialed.

“Gibbs.”

“Boss. Need your help.”

“You can’t figure out how to sunbathe on your own?” 

“Actually, I think I found a serial killer that the sheriff’s office out here is ignoring.”

“Sheriff? Where the hell are you, DiNozzo?”

“Sweet Water?”

“What state is that?”

“A mountain one? Colorado, maybe?”

“Mountain? Who are you and what have you done with my Senior Field Agent?”

“It’s me, Gibbs, I promise. I’ll explain everything once you get here, but I have 3 dead petty officers and at least 9 civilians that were all killed the same way as far as I can tell that the locals haven’t linked together.”

“Sounds like you need McGee.”

“Aw, c’mon boss. Don’t pass me off on the probie. There’s something off, here, boss.”

“McGee, book me a flight to Sweet Water.” Gibbs barked before Tony heard the dial tone.

Tony chuckled, well versed in Gibbs hanging up on him. At least, some things never changed. If Gibbs managed to catch the first flight, he could be here in a couple of hours.

Tony wondered what route the snowmobile races took. He didn’t want Gibbs to end up stuck like he had. If the snowmobiles went down the route from the airport to Sweet Water, maybe he would participate and see if he could spot Gibbs coming in and follow along to make sure he made it to the lodge, ok.

He needed a break from staring at these case files anyway. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure if participating in the snowmobile race would make people more or less likely to bother him. He could also switch to his white panther self and keep an eye out for Gibbs that way. Of course, if Gibbs actually got stuck there wasn’t much cat Tony could do to help him.

Seriously, what use was being able to turn into a big mammal without opposable thumbs? It didn’t help him for his job in the slightest and even in his personal life there was little good it did. He really wished that he hadn’t been born this way.

Now, his need to be in his animal form warred with his human desire to be Gibbs’ knight in shining armor. Not that Gibbs needed a knight in shining armor. Let’s face it, he was an outdoors guy and would probably eat this snow for breakfast.

Still there was a part of Tony that wished that he could rescue Gibbs the way Adam had rescued him. He had a secret fantasy that if he rescued Gibbs, Gibbs would actually notice him. He knew it wasn’t likely, but he couldn’t help wishing it would.

How long was he supposed to harbor feelings for Gibbs without Gibbs noticing before he gave up. Could he even give up? If his feelings hadn’t gone away after four years what was the chance that they ever would?

Right now, spending as much time in his white panther form as possible before Gibbs got here was the most important thing. If he needed to rescue Gibbs he could return, change to human and take a snowmobile down. Gibbs didn’t actually need to know that Tony was watching out for him. 

Chances were Gibbs would be pissed if he thought Tony was mother henning him or something. Better he not know. Plus, the less he had to tell Gibbs about being a cat, the better. 

Making sure the coast was clear, Tony quickly changed into his panther and loped down the mountain. The airport was pretty much at the bottom of the mountain and there was a nice expanse of white that ran parallel to the main mountain road making it easy for Tony to keep track of the road as he traveled down, so that he wouldn’t accidentally miss Gibbs. Assuming he beat Gibbs to the bottom of the mountain, he would be able to spend time as a panther while he waited and hopefully give his cat enough attention that he wouldn’t transform in the middle of this case.

Guaranteed if he did transform, it would be at the most inopportune time and his secret would be revealed to at least Gibbs if not others. He honestly had no idea how Gibbs would react. He hoped that Gibbs would give him a chance to explain if he realized that Tony could turn into a cat, but you never could tell how people would react.

Many times, he’d thought that his relationship with someone had progressed far enough that they would handle finding out about his panther side, but it had never worked out well for him. This wasn’t even embarrassment due to fake cat parts kind of bad. This was leave the country never talk to him again kind of bad.

He’d gotten lucky that no one he’d revealed himself to had been the kind of person to blab it to the whole world, but it had still made him leery of revealing himself even to his closest friends. Honestly, he hadn’t even considered it for at least 20 years by now. The last reveal had been rather scarring to his teenage self. 

Gibbs, though, Gibbs made him want to reveal all of his secrets to him. It was a dangerous feeling. Tony had no idea how this was going to turn out.

For now, though, he would focus on having fun as a cat. No point in worrying about Gibbs finding out that he was a cat. Gibbs wasn’t even here, yet, and likely wouldn’t be for a good hour at least.

Tony easily reached the bottom of the mountain not having run into any trouble despite multiple pauses on the way down since panthers were more of sprinters than long distance runners. He hadn’t seen any sign of Gibbs, but couldn’t continue farther in this form as he would not blend in well in the city. After taking a look around, Tony walked in a circle before finding a spot to lay down and watch for Gibbs.

Winter had driven most of the animals into hiding. In fact, it was practically silent. Tony found himself lulled into taking a nap by the quiet.

Sleeping as a cat wasn’t like sleeping as a human. His ears were always ready to take in any noise and he perked up as he heard the sound of a vehicle. He was disappointed when he looked up to find that it was just the snowmobile racers which he assumed were from the race he’d considered participating in. 

Tony folded his chin on top of his paws as he stared at the racers and wished that they were Gibbs. It was stupid, really. He hadn’t been away from Gibbs for that long.

He shouldn’t miss him as badly as he did, but alas his heartstrings were more attached to Gibbs than he thought appropriate. Tony’s tail swished agitatedly as he glared at the snowmobile racers. Apparently, the bottom of the mountain was the end of the race, so they were all milling about making noise and making his ears work harder to identify arriving vehicles that might be Gibbs.

His nose twitched as he smelled Adam. He didn’t know why, but Adam’s scent had his hackles going and he had to bite back a growl so that he didn’t draw attention to himself. As it was, the snowmobile racers would notice as soon as he started to move if they didn’t leave first. They were currently staring right at him, but didn’t appear to be seeing anything other than snow as there was no panic or excitement in their eyes.

He hoped it continued that way until they left, which hopefully would be soon. There were still no signs of vehicles other than the snowmobile racers. Tony wasn’t sure if he should be happy or sad about that.

He breathed a sigh of relief when most of the snowmobile racers started making their way up the middle of the road. Adam hadn’t left, yet, and Tony continued to watch him warily as the others left. His ears perked up even more as he heard a vehicle approaching from the town. 

He swiveled his head to look and his tongue flicked out and licked his paw in anticipation. That was Gibbs. He just knew it.

All of the snowmobile racers were gone as well, Adam having left last Tony thought based on scent. Tony stood up and started sprinting alongside Gibbs’ vehicle. He blinked in surprise as he saw Adam helping another motorist who had gotten themselves stuck.

Tony wasn’t sure how they’d gotten themselves stuck. It wasn’t like there’d been another blizzard. Maybe they just didn’t know how to drive in the snow.

Tony ignored it, however. Meeting up with Gibbs was more important. Now, it would be a race. 

Tony had to really speed up if he wanted to make it back to his cabin and transform back to human before Gibbs got checked in. He wondered where Gibbs was staying. Did they want to tip their hand and try to book Gibbs a cabin next to his?

Would it be better to not let people know that they knew each other? Should Tony just tell Gibbs to come to his cabin, so that none of the people at the lodge knew about Gibbs? Tony wasn’t sure why the cases weren’t being properly investigated nor who was actually involved, so he didn’t know what the best move was.

He hated it. Maybe if he made it back to his cabin he could call Gibbs and see what he wanted to do. Tony started running faster. 

The way Gibbs drove he’d be lucky to get a hold of him as he was checking in at the lodge let alone before then, but he’d try. That was all he could do. He was completely out of breath by the time he reached the cabin.

Fortunately, his human form would not be feeling that effect. Tony quickly made it into the cabin and switched forms. He didn’t bother to check if he still had some cat parts.

He was in too much of a hurry to call Gibbs and make sure Gibbs had what he needed to make an informed decision about where he should be staying. He grabbed his cellphone from where it sat next to the laptop he’d left open when he left.

Wait. Open? He hadn’t left the laptop open. Who had been snooping?


	3. Gibbs vs Adam?

Tony hissed. Well in that case, Gibbs having his own cabin was sounding more and more important despite Tony wanting an excuse to share with him. Apparently, he was already under suspicion or something. There was no way they got into the laptop, especially since it was still sitting on the login screen. 

Admittedly, it wouldn’t fry itself on contact like his work laptop, but even if they’d somehow gotten in the NCIS stuff would be safe as closing the connection automatically erased all evidence of itself. It was kind of annoying when he needed to access NCIS from it for multiple days in a row, but it was a really good security measure. He would have to check the laptop for intrusion at some point, but that was the least of his worries right now. 

He shot off a single text to Gibbs, “Make sure you get your own cabin, preferably not near mine.”

There was no response from Gibbs, but Tony didn’t expect one. He also didn’t expect a knock on his door either. He opened the door and found Betsy on the other side. “Yes?”

”I heard you skipped out on the snowmobile races this afternoon. You know they happen every Friday, right?”

“Yep. Adam made sure I knew.”

“That man always goes out of his way to make sure guests are comfortable. Did he tell you about the activities this evening and over the weekend too?”

“No.”

“Well then,” Betsy brightened, “You simply must come to our line dance or well we call it snow dance at this time of year. That’s happening this evening at the lodge in about 3 hours.”

Tony made a noncommittal noise wondering how he could get out of this.

“This weekend will be even better with a guided tour of the trails by none other than Adam, himself.”

“Adam also plays tour guide?”

“Adam is the best tour guide and the vast majority of the entertainment here as well.”

Tony raised an eyebrow at that. “He really gets around, huh?”

“I guess you could say that. Anyway I expect to see you tonight. If I don’t, I will make sure to send someone after you and I can guarantee you won’t like that.” Her voice more than hinted at danger should he not comply.

Tony closed the door and rested his head against it. His tail also touched the door. Wait. Tail?

Tony looked down. Sure enough not all the cat parts had vanished. Damn it. He hoped Betsy hadn’t noticed.

He’d better fix that before Gibbs showed up. He expected him to finish checking in any minute now. Actually now that he thought about it, maybe it would be better for Tony and Gibbs to meet up at the snow dance. 

Tony quickly shot off a text to that effect. That was the best way for them to meet without tipping off that they knew each other beforehand. It would be even better if he could get to dance with Gibbs to keep his cover. 

It was a line dance supposedly, but maybe they would have regular dancing too. Tony could only hope. Of course, none of this would help solve the case, but in all honesty he didn’t want to do more on the case until he had a chance to confer with Gibbs.

He knew there was something he was missing regarding the case. Heck, he’d barely scratched the surface. In fact, he’d run into a bit of an issue. 

His searches into the people that he suspected had been killed by this serial killer had turned up nothing. No friends, no family, no one that he could talk to. 

Well the petty officers obviously had people that could be talked to, but not anyone in this town. In fact, from the brief investigation that had been done by the authorities no one had even known where they’d gone on vacation. That was curious.

Of course, the authorities had also only investigated by calling up their captains and talking to them and a few men they recommended. There had been no in person interview. Tony had always found that more things were revealed in person. 

The fact that not a single person had been vacationing with a friend bothered Tony. There didn’t seem to be anything else in common between the victims. How was the serial killer choosing his victims? Was there even a serial killer?

So many questions. So few answers. Tony couldn’t help feeling like it was important that Gibbs and he limit contact. 

His gut was telling him that vacationing alone was one of the keys, but he knew it couldn’t be the only one. There were many people that vacationed alone at this place and there was no way all of them ended up dead. 

It would be impossible for anyone to ignore that many deaths. There had to be a way that the victims were being chosen, but heck if Tony could figure it out. There weren’t many clues to go on.

He couldn’t wait to discuss it with Gibbs. How they were going to communicate without being seen together on a regular basis would be a tricky one. Maybe Abby would help out. 

It sucked that they couldn’t be seen together a lot. Tony always enjoyed spending time with Gibbs even if it was for a case. Oh well, at least they had tonight.

Tony loaded up the information he’d found along with his notes and concerns onto a thumb drive. He’d transfer it to Gibbs while they danced. Gibbs played at not knowing how to do computers, but Tony knew he’d figure it out or get McGee to help him.

Now, if he just knew what to wear to this dance. He didn’t have a lot to choose from, but hopefully he’d packed at least one outfit that would work. It was a line dance, so probably jeans with a nice button down would work.

Wouldn’t turn Gibbs’ head, but he didn’t think he owned any clothes that would. He certainly didn’t bring any with him. Nor had Betsy given him any from the gift shop. 

Wait. The gift shop. Maybe he could get a decent date outfit there. 

Wouldn’t hurt to check it out, at least. Tony locked up and headed for the lodge. He’d deal with the laptop later.

Tony frowned as he browsed the gift shop. Literally, the only date clothes he could see would only be useful for picking up a lumberjack. Gibbs was into wood, but Tony didn’t think he was that into wood. 

On the other hand the outfits kind of matched the clothes Gibbs normally wore. Maybe Gibbs did find them hot. Tony would never have been caught dead in them before, but when in the country dress like the country men do, right?

Tony paid for his purchases and headed back to his cabin. Even if he didn’t have the clothes he preferred, he could make up for it with his styling products. He never went anywhere without those.

By the time the line dance started, Tony wasn’t sure if he was going to score himself a Gibbs or just make a fool of himself. The one thing he did know was that he looked more like a cowboy than he ever had before. He hoped that Gibbs actually showed up.

Tony blinked as he walked into the lodge dance hall. When they said snow dance they really meant it, didn’t they? He hadn’t expected the dance hall/bar to have been transformed into a winter wonderland. 

The good news was his outfit blended in really well. The bad news, the room was so packed it was going to be difficult to find Gibbs. They had a quick lesson at the beginning of one of the line dances.

Tony rolled his eyes. It wasn’t difficult. He’d done line dances before and this actually was one he already knew. 

He hoped things would get livelier after this. At least, they were still doing normal songs and not some weird Christmas only songs thing. Though there were a disproportionate number of songs about snow.

He barely had room to move and he watched a number of others learn the correct steps simply through self preservation as they were almost run over because they did the steps incorrectly. Fortunately, Tony was used to dancing, though he didn’t regularly do line dancing, and was doing fairly well if he did say so himself. He could almost do this in his sleep.

He glanced around hoping to spot Gibbs, but honestly he could really only see the bodies directly in front, to the side, and behind. Gibbs definitely wasn’t any of those. Tony slowly tried to dance his way to a different position in the room.

It was hard and he ended up with a lot more body contact than he really wanted, but he managed to change positions. Still no Gibbs, though.

Tony was beginning to wonder if Gibbs was one of the ones standing around being a wallflower and drinking bourbon at the bar. Everyone knew how much Gibbs loved his bourbon, after all. Just then the music changed to a slow dance. 

People turned to their neighbors and picked a partner to continue dancing. Tony had never seen anything like it. He was just about to work his way to the bar in lieu of dancing with someone when he heard, “May I have this dance?”

“Adam?” Tony gasped as he turned around. 

Adam continued to hold out his hand, smiling brightly and offering a flirty wink. Tony really had no choice, but to accept. He wanted to dance with Gibbs, but as far as anyone else knew he knew no one and it would have been too suspicious for him to turn down a dance partner.

His libido had cooled seriously in regards to Adam. After all, no one could compete with Gibbs as far as his feelings were concerned. His body seemed to concur.

Still Adam was a good dancer and if Tony weren’t in love with Gibbs he’d have been impressed. He had to admit he enjoyed dancing with Adam and wouldn’t mind doing more of it. They continued to dance as songs changed and Tony was wondering how he was going to get away and find Gibbs.

“You mind if I cut in?”

Adam glared at the interloper, but when he saw Gibbs he smiled and gave in gracefully. “Not at all.”

Tony had to hide his smile. He didn’t want to reveal anything, but he couldn’t deny how happy he was that Gibbs had cut in. Tony gracefully moved into Gibbs’ arms.

Adam moved away and Gibbs and Tony danced. The music transitioned to a waltz and Gibbs took advantage to dip Tony. Tony whispered left front pocket in Gibbs’ ear as he was dipped.

Gibbs nodded and groped the pocket as they came up from the dip. Tony felt him slip the thumb drive out and couldn’t help wishing that Gibbs was touching him for a completely different reason instead. Still he would enjoy the close dancing while he could. 

Of course, too long would look suspicious, but man did Gibbs know how to lead. Tony hadn’t realized he was such a good dancer. Tony doubted Gibbs would be into the kind of dancing Abby did, but maybe someday he could take Gibbs slow dancing.

Adam cut back in and Tony bit back a sigh. The guy was definitely persistent. Maybe Tony could make his excuses and go back to the cabin now. 

It would look weird to step out mid dance, so Tony finished the one dance before making an excuse of needing a drink. Instead of going to the bar, though, he slipped out and headed back to his cabin. He still had an investigation to figure out. 

First, though, he had to make sure his computer was safe. Time to run the clean program and connect back up to NCIS to go through the police archives again. Hopefully he could find some clue that would help them solve this case.

Since he couldn’t figure out how the victims were picked, he started looking into any suspects the police had tagged. There weren’t many details on the suspect, but what there were rang a bell for Tony. If he could just figure out why, he might finally have a lead on this mess.

Tony stared at the screen for a long time trying to figure out why it rang a bell. He ended up falling asleep in front of the computer. He jerked awake when his phone rang.

“DiNozzo.”

“There’s been another murder. Turn on your TV.” Gibbs ordered.

Tony quickly moved to obey. The TV was still on the news channel. Tony stared in shock at the victim they were showing on the screen.

He recognized that guy, but he couldn’t figure out from where. “I know I’ve seen that guy before, boss.”

“Figure it out. Text me when you know something.”

“You going down to the scene, boss?”

“No. I don’t want to tip them off. If you can get to the scene without anyone seeing you, do it. Otherwise stay away.”

“You got it, boss.” Tony wondered if he should try to head for this crime scene as a panther as well. Maybe he could see more about how the authorities investigated this time. Though he didn’t hold much hope, given it had already made it to the news. 

Gibbs didn’t know about his abilities as a cat, but he had said that if he could get to the scene without anyone seeing him to do so. Decision made Tony transformed and snuck out of the cabin and to the crime scene. Hopefully something would reveal itself there and tell him who was behind this all.

The new crime scene was fresher than the previous one. Something smelled familiar to Tony about this scene. He couldn’t put his paw on what was familiar, but there was something here that he had smelled before. 

He couldn’t get too close. There was still someone at the crime scene. He didn’t recognize the person and assumed it was the sheriff since a town like this didn’t actually have a police department. 

The person currently bagging things at the scene was undoubtedly the one, overworked, and underpaid sheriff for this town. This also probably contributed to why the cases hadn’t been linked. Tony didn’t sense any malice in this individual and felt that they likely hadn’t been purposefully helping a serial killer hide their deaths.

Tony knew it was easy to miss things when you were overworked, especially if you had other unrelated deaths to deal with. He was sure the sheriff also dealt with the natural deaths and random animal deaths and any other crimes in the area. He couldn’t blame the sheriff for missing the links.

He really couldn’t, but he also couldn’t let the serial killer continue to get away with it. Tony was positive that there was a serial killer now. He still hadn’t figured out who and still had no leads, but he was positive that while the sheriff could have done better she really couldn’t be faulted for the situation they found themselves in.

Tony waited until the sheriff left before he moved down to the crime scene and poked around. Aside from the smell that kept haunting him as familiar, he couldn’t see or smell anything that the sheriff had missed. Disappointed, Tony headed back to his cabin. 

He still couldn’t figure out where he recognized the victim from either. It was driving him crazy. He wished he had something to report to Gibbs. 

He wished he had an excuse of any sort to call Gibbs. Alas, he didn’t think this would be the vacation that he would get together with Gibbs. That was easier for him since Gibbs would be less likely to happen across him in animal form on accident, but it still sucked.

Heck even investigating something together in person would be better than nothing. He should reach out and see if Gibbs had figured out anything and report his lack of findings. He shot off a quick text. 

The response back wasn’t quite what he expected. “Is there somewhere we can meet without anyone seeing us?”

Tony hadn’t been here long enough to figure out places where no one would see them. Well aside from in the woods, but he didn’t really want to meet Gibbs in the middle of the woods in human form. Somewhere that they would blend in better would be best. 

He didn’t know that no one would see them, but he was pretty sure the sheriff office for this town was isolated away from other buildings, so the only person they’d likely run into would be the sheriff and a deputy if she had one. He texted back, “I’m pretty sure the sheriff isn’t involved after witnessing her at the crime scene this morning. Let’s meet at her office.”

Gibbs responded with a short, “Meet me there, now.”

Tony quickly pulled up a map on his computer to try and figure out where the sheriff’s office was. It would be faster for him to take cat form to get there. He needed to know where he was going though. 

Knowledge did transfer between forms even though interpretation of the knowledge was different. Some information was ignored as it couldn’t be handled well in the form that it was not gained in, but maps were one thing that would transfer. Though, it took some extra effort to translate the map to what the cat saw as maps were never made with cat sight in mind.

Finally, Tony had a good idea of where to go. He wasn’t sure where Gibbs was staying, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Gibbs beat him there. He changed into his panther form and hightailed it out of there. 

He wondered if McGee or Abby or someone had figured out an important piece of information. He had no idea why Gibbs would be demanding a meeting otherwise. Gibbs was ever mysterious, though, so it could be something else. 

When Tony finally saw the sheriff's office, he paused behind a tree and turned back into human. He did a quick check for cat parts and was happy to see none before continuing down at a more sedate pace than his panther had taken.

The sheriff’s office was a small building that looked to be made of cement. It had one big window with green grilles Tony noticed as he walked by it. He hadn’t seen Gibbs or the sheriff, yet. 

He circled the building, double checking sightlines and confirming there really was no one that could see them. As he got back around to the window, he glanced in and realized that it was one of those windows that people inside could see out of, but people outside can’t see in. He had no idea if the sheriff was in her office or not because of that.

Technically, there could be other people in her office as well, but Tony doubted it. He leaned against the window and waited for Gibbs to appear. Tony disliked having the window behind him, but he expected Gibbs to come from this direction so he would deal with it for now. 

“DiNozzo,” Gibbs greeted.

“Gibbs.”

“Let’s walk.”

Tony nodded and led the way in a circle around the building. It was kind of weird to walk with Gibbs behind him and try to hold a conversation, but he knew instinctively that there was a reason behind Gibbs choosing to do it this way. He wasn’t sure why unless Gibbs thought they were being watched and wanted to make it more difficult for people to listen in. 

After all, anyone following them would be obvious and keeping in constant movement would mean anyone watching from the trees or even listening from inside would only hear parts of the conversation and not the whole. “What do you know about Adam?” floated to Tony’s ears and he startled badly. “Why?” Tony asked back.

“He was watching you the whole time you were at the dance last night.”

“He was?”

“Yep.”

“Well he’s been very flirty, but not pushy. He’s very much a good samaritan. He helped me to the lodge when I got stuck in a blizzard.”

Gibbs hummed noncommittally. 

Tony thought about Adam bringing him his stuff from the rental vehicle. Sure, it was suspicious, but he really hadn’t thought anything of it. There hadn’t been any other red flags and he’d been categorized by Tony’s brain as annoying, but mostly harmless. 

“Any other reason? You don’t suspect him of being the serial killer, do you?”

Gibbs grunted. “We don’t have enough information to suspect anyone, but be careful around him. He’s hiding something.”

“That your gut?”

“Yep.”

”We have anything new on the case, yet?”

“McGee and Ziva have been tracing back the victims last day and they say the last known movement before the victims were discovered, dead, was that every one of them went jogging on one of the hiking trails alone. Not always the same trail, but always alone.”

“Including this latest victim?”

“Yep.”

“So we could try to set up a trap.”

“Not yet. The team is still looking into some things. I think we’ll have more information if we wait.”

“So you just want me to be careful around Adam? That was the entire reason behind this meeting?”

“No. I just wanted to see you. Something felt off last night and I needed to make sure for myself that you were alright.”

“Aw. Thanks, Gibbs. I didn’t know you cared.”

Gibbs gave him a flat look, “I’ve always cared, DiNozzo.”

Something about that wording made Tony look closely at Gibbs. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but after searching Gibbs eyes, he finally asked, “There’s something more, isn’t there?”

“Not now, Tony.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. That wasn’t a no. Maybe he had a chance with Gibbs, after all. 

Then he noticed that Gibbs was staring at the woods. Tony glanced in the same direction and realized there was a human out there. He wasn’t positive, but he thought that was the sheriff he’d seen as a cat. 

The woman was getting closer. Actually, it was Betsy. “Betsy?”

“Tony? What are you doing out here?”

“Oh, you know, just decided to see if the sheriff is home.”

“Is there something wrong with your cabin?”

“Nope.”

“Then what do you need the sheriff for?”

“That’s between me and her. Sorry.”

“I’m deputy sheriff, you can tell me whatever it is.”

“You’re deputy sheriff?”

“Almost everyone in this town does more than one job to keep the town running normally. Most of us pitch in to help out when a need is discovered as well.”

Tony glanced around and realized that Gibbs had snuck away while Tony had been talking to Betsy. It was almost like he’d never been there. Tony shrugged, “I better head back. Thanks anyway, Betsy.”

Tony headed for the trees and cover. He really had no idea where Gibbs had disappeared to. Still he wasn’t worried. 

Gibbs could take care of himself. Mostly, Tony wanted to make sure that no one saw him. He had zero desire to make his way back to his cabin on foot or at least not on human foot. 

He didn’t see anyone and the cover was thick enough that he shouldn’t be easily spotted. Quickly transforming, Tony sprinted for the cabin. As a cat he could run faster than he ever could as human, though he did pretty decently for a human.

Tony remembered that today was the day for the guided walking tour of the hiking trails. If knowledge of the hiking trails was going to be key, that activity might be useful. Plus, it would give him a chance to see Adam around other people and figure out what he was hiding that had Gibbs’ hackles up.

Adam hadn’t pinged on his radar and he usually had a good sense for these things. Between his exposure to Senior and his associates and his time in law enforcement, his instincts were usually well honed when it came to people. On the other hand, everyone had secrets, so maybe Adam’s secret that was pinging on Gibbs’ gut wasn’t important.

That’s why he wanted to join the guided hiking trail tour. Plus, it would give him a better sense for the area. He’d explored some as a cat, but he needed to know the scenery as a human as well just in case.

By the time, Tony was prepared for the tour and joined the group there were at least 15 people gathered there. That was good as the chance of anyone doing anything with these kinds of numbers were slim. He was surprised to see Gibbs there as well.

He wondered if Gibbs was there to keep an eye on Adam or to get a better feel for the area or for a completely different reason entirely. Still he ignored Gibbs. He didn’t want it to seem like they were too friendly even though they’d danced the night before.

The hiking trails while chilly were absolutely beautiful. The trees had that light dusting of snow that added a sleek beauty making him feel like he was in the middle of some fantasy winter wonderland. He guessed he kind of was.

The snow crunched as they walked on it and icicles hung frozen as an additional decoration on the trees. It wasn’t quite white for miles, but it was pretty close. Aside from the cold, Tony loved it.

If it weren’t for the nosy busybodies, he would probably vacation here again in the future. However, when he vacationed in the cold it was to get time in his cat form which he wasn’t able to do as well as he would like here due to the gossipers. He’d gotten some time as a cat, but it was snatches here and there.

He was a long way from the amount of time he needed to spend as a panther to keep it under control. Hopefully, it would be enough to last him until he could reasonably vacation again as he didn’t think Jenny would be excited about letting him take time off anytime soon. Tony tuned back into Adam’s words as the group moved along one of the trails. 

The man had a way with words, but he didn’t have that slick charmer smoothness that so many conmen had. What made Adam different was the sincerity that rang through each and every word he spoke. Tony couldn’t help wondering if Gibbs’ gut would still be tweaking over Adam after this.

Nothing really exciting happened during the guided tour. Adam kept the crowd talking and laughing as they went along, but that was pretty much the most interesting thing that happened. They moved slowly so that no one would get lost and covered all the hiking trails. 

Tony had a better feel for the various trails now. They hadn’t walked every inch of them, but they had covered many of the trails regardless. Most of the trails were wide enough for a small vehicle to drive along them which Adam demonstrated and used to cart them from trail to trail when it was time to switch trails.

Tony couldn’t stop himself from texting, “See Adam’s nice,” to Gibbs as he headed back to his cabin.

Gibbs didn’t respond, but Tony hadn’t expected him to. Tony fell asleep contemplating what he should do for the investigation tomorrow, turning back into a cat sometime during the night He woke up bright and early, human again, his mind clear. 

It was the best time to run in Tony’s opinion. Sometimes he would go into the office when he felt like this and suddenly the pieces for a case would click and he’d have a lead. Since the cabin was his office, he hoped that a quick run keeping what he knew in mind would make something click.

He still needed to figure out where he knew the most recent victim from and what smelled familiar to him at the crime scenes. At this hour of the day no one was out and about, it was perfect for self reflection. Tony blinked when he noticed red drops in the snow.

Was that blood? Had there been another murder? Tony slowed, approaching the red drops carefully, his body on alert now for anything out of the ordinary.

His clear thoughts, completely shattered, and lost to the harshness of mankind as a million questions invaded his head. He heard a buzzing sound and turned, but all that did was cause the dart to hit him in the front of the neck instead of the back of it. Tony fell to the ground, unconscious.


	4. Tony vs ?

When he woke his head was fuzzy and hurting. He kept his eyes closed, recognizing the signs of being drugged and not ready to find out how much trouble he was in, yet. First, he tried to take an inventory of his injuries.

His body generally seemed to be fine aside from being weak and drugged. He hadn’t yet attempted to move anything, but the only thing actively hurting was his head, which was usually a good sign that whoever kidnapped him hadn’t tortured him while he was unconscious. He was lying down with his arms under him.

Starting with trying to move his hands, arms, and feet, Tony quickly realized that his arms were bound and uncomfortably at that. His ankles were bound too. He could sit up if he used his abdominal muscles, he thought, but that would not be the easiest thing in the world. 

Finally, deciding to see what was in store for him, he blinked when he found himself face to face with Betsy. “Betsy? What’s going on?”

A sneer crossed Betsy’s face, “I’m going to rid the world of an idiot like you.”

Tony blinked. He had never suspected Betsy. That would also explain why none of the cases had been linked together and how evidence got missed since she was the deputy sheriff too.

Tony didn’t respond, though. He had a feeling that Betsy was one of those that would keep talking if you didn’t interrupt her. He needed to know more about why she was doing this.

“I have to be nice and kind and take care of all the idiots day in and day out. No one thinks about me or how hard it is to smile all day long. The idiots like you annoy me the most. They think they can just do whatever and don’t even use common sense when planning their vacation and who has to take care of them? Me.”

Tony couldn’t believe the change in Betsy. She’d seemed genuinely helpful before. She clearly had some sociopathic tendencies. He couldn’t help wondering if she wouldn’t have turned to violence if more people had just said thank you.

“If I’m lucky they say thank you, but they never think to do anything nice for me. They expect it from me. Think it’s part of my job. So I have to take my own thanks. I take it out of the hide of the ones too stupid to live. Like you.”

“Whoa. Wait a minute here. What have I done that’s so bad?”

“You almost caught hypothermia and were lucky you didn’t end up with pneumonia given that stunt you pulled in the blizzard. If Adam hadn’t happened along, you would probably have died in that blizzard. Since you didn’t, I’m going to rectify that.” Poison dripped from every word that Betsy spoke. There was no sign of remorse in them, at all.

“But.”

“Shut up!” Betsy backhanded, Tony across the face. Apparently, she was done talking.

Tony moved with the hit to lessen it as they were taught and wished he had his hands free to wipe the blood off his lips. He knew he was in trouble.

There was no doubt in his mind that she was truly crazy, a highly functional sociopath, but truly crazy. He had no idea how he was going to get out of this. He knew that Gibbs would notice he was missing, but who knew if that would be in time.

He wondered what she would do first. All the victims had shown signs of torture. He didn’t remember seeing the dart wound that he was sure he had in the files, but there had been many puncture marks, so it had probably blended in with them and not stood out as significant.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief as the phone rang and Betsy frowned, but turned to get it. She still had her actual job to do, so she couldn’t spend too much time on him, right now, could she? It was early, but not that early. 

The lodge opened at 6am or something stupid early like that, with an emergency number to call if it was closed, and he hadn’t left the cabin until 5am. Tony heard footsteps coming back towards him and hoped that the phone call had bought him some time. Betsy kicked him hard in the side and he coughed and curled up to protect his stomach and side as much as he could.

“Unfortunately, I can’t attend to you, right now, but don’t worry I’ll be back.”

Tony waited until he heard the door shut behind her. Actually, he waited for a good 10 minutes after that to make sure it really was the front door he’d heard. Finally, deciding it was safe Tony tried to sit up.

The pain from where she kicked him kept flaring as he tried to sit up. It took a few tries before he was actually in a sitting position. Tony grinned as he realized that she hadn’t actually stripped him of all his toys. 

He definitely had his ankle knife and quite possibly his belt knife as well. She hadn’t even stripped him naked. She was clearly an amateur when it came to keeping someone locked up who had actual training. 

He managed to work the knife out of his boot and into one of his hands and worked to free his hands first as they were the easiest to fake still being tied up if she came back unexpectedly. Just as he was about to work on his ankles, he heard a creak. Tony froze.

He quickly laid back down in the position he’d been in before. He’d thought he was alone. The chance that whoever was there had come to rescue him was slim. 

His best bet was to pretend he was still tied up and hope that whoever was there wouldn’t notice that his hands were free or that he had a knife he could wield. Another creak. This time Tony was certain that it was a door opening. It sounded like they were getting closer.

When they were finally face to face, Tony choked out in surprise, “You!”

Adam smiled, “I’ve been waiting for this moment, Tony.”

“Oh god, that’s why I recognized the victim that was found today. You helped him from his car to the lodge yesterday.”

Adam nodded, “Good memory. He was even stupider than you.”

Tony groaned. “Don’t you have a ski class to teach or something?”

“Not for a good five hours. Plenty of time to work you over to my satisfaction.”

“So you and Betsy?” Tony raised an eyebrow.

“Nah. We just have a similar dislike for stupid people. I do hope you liked my present.”

“Present?”

“Oh. Have you not noticed, yet? How precious.”

Tony stared at Adam in confusion, racking his brain for what Adam could possibly mean. Then he remembered the scent at the crime scenes that had seemed familiar. That had been Adam’s scent.

Had Adam figured out that he could transform into a cat? Had Betsy seen him change? Come to think of it, how did Adam know he’d seen him with the other victim?

Tony had been in his panther form at the time. Oh, this was not good. Tony still had no idea what Adam was talking about, but he had a bad feeling that Adam knew more about him than he had ever thought he did.

That’s when he remembered the mark. The sign that every victim had had on their body somewhere. “Where did you put it?”

Adam just smirked. “That’s for me to know and you to find out. Don’t worry I chose the spot specifically to give you the most pleasure.”

Oh, that did not sound good, at all. Tony didn’t like the sound of what was about to happen. Now, he was hoping that the strangling with the rope would come first.

That would be vastly preferable to what was beginning to sound like a planned raping. He had a knife and he could do some serious damage to Adam, but he had no doubts as to who had the upper hand, right now. Adam moved closer looming over him with his body.

Adam whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it’s good for you too. It’s so much better when they enjoy it and hate themselves for it.”

Adam reached down and grabbed Tony’s t-shirt, ripping it off of him with ease. Tony flinched at the biting cold as it felt like it invaded every cell of his body. He hadn’t noticed it before, too busy trying to figure out an escape plan to realize that they’d removed his cold weather jacket that he’d thrown on for his run this morning to make sure he stayed warm enough. 

He grasped the knife tighter, readying himself to fight back. Maybe he could injure Adam enough to force him to leave him alone for right now. If he bought enough time, Gibbs would find him. 

Tony was positive about that. He just had to survive that long somehow. Right now, Tony wasn’t sure how, but he was going to make the knife he had count. 

He just had to wait for Adam to let down his guard and give him an opening. Tony had never been a sniper, but he’d picked up some tricks from Gibbs and waiting for the right moment was one of them. Adam climbed on top of him, pressing their chests together and Tony shivered in disgust.

Adam’s smile brightened. “Not all of them were worthy of being fucked. You should consider yourself lucky.”

“I am lucky,” Tony announced as he rolled Adam under him and used the knife to slice through his ankle bindings at the same time.

Blood trickled from Adam’s leg where it had gotten cut as Tony sliced through his bindings. That wasn’t enough though, Tony knew if he wanted to escape that he would have to slow Adam down in some way. Tony popped up, swinging the knife with as much force across Adam as he could. He didn’t want to stab him as the knife might get stuck, but maybe if he sliced him up enough he could escape. 

Adam cried out in pain and Tony used the chance to head for the door. He knew Adam was better prepared than he was and he wasn’t willing to chance losing the fight. Better to escape and come back with reinforcements, preferably Gibbs.

Unfortunately, Adam didn’t seem to care about his injury. In fact, he tackled Tony to the floor before Tony even reached the door to make sure Tony couldn’t escape. Tony hadn’t seen Adam holding a knife before, but he definitely was now.

They grappled, slashing at each other with their knives, neither of them gaining the upper hand. Tony still had no idea where Adam had marked him. He hoped that Adam had been lying about that. 

He slowly backed up towards the door hoping that if he timed it right, he could get out the door before Adam could stop him. Thinking he had an opening, he tossed Adam off him and as far away from the door as he could and quickly opened the door to slip through it while Adam was distracted. 

Adam brushed off his landing and only smiled wider. “I like it when they fight back. Makes it more fun.”

Before Tony could make it through the door, Adam tossed his knife, skimming Tony’s arm and leaving something very similar to a paper cut behind as it embedded itself in the door. Tony hoped that that was Adam’s only knife and he could make it through the door, now, but alas Adam was already back on him, having pulled another knife from somewhere, and they were back to knife against knife. 

Tony had grabbed the knife from the door and was wielding two knives, but it wasn’t giving him the upper hand he needed. Adam wasn’t as stupid as he had thought. If he wasn’t careful, he would be tied up and this time he was sure Adam would make sure he couldn’t escape so easily. He was also certain he would not like whatever consequences Adam doled out on him. 

He really wished he’d messaged Gibbs that he was going for a run. Still he took a couple of steps back to take a few breaths as he readied himself for his next attack. If he was going down, he would take the fucker down with him. 

He’d actually given Adam the benefit of the doubt in the face of Gibbs’ gut. He regretted that now. He regretted a lot of things, including this entire trip.

Things would be so much easier if he didn’t randomly turn into a cat. Wait. His panther form… Maybe that could be his ticket out of here.

If he could just get out of here, then he could transform and be home free. Adam would be looking for a human not a cat. Tony looked around the room they were in with more purpose now. Was there something that would let him escape as a panther that he wouldn’t be able to use as a human? Preferably something innocuous that Adam hadn’t thought of?

He didn’t have much time to look as Adam was still trying to drive him to the floor and overpower him. He’d never fought in his panther form, but maybe he should chance it. He bet Adam wasn’t used to fighting a big cat. 

Tony pushed Adam back and tried to transform, only to find he couldn’t. “What did you do to me?”

“You didn’t think you were the first shifter we’d captured, did you?”

“What did you do?” Tony snarled. 

“You know that mark I talked about?” Adam grinned.

“What about it?”

“It’s a little known secret that a shifter can’t shift with aloe inside their blood stream. The mark is simply a decorative way to apply the aloe directly to the bloodstream.”

Tony cursed. That was going to make things even more difficult. He really hoped Gibbs had figured out he was missing by now.

He eyed Adam with more wariness now. While he didn’t have any major injuries, yet, he knew it was only a matter of time. He could already feel himself tiring against the fast, but bulky ski instructor. Adam shouldn’t have known about his panther side. Tony knew that meant that he needed to be even more careful now. 

He didn’t think there was anything that would lead Gibbs to where he was. His best bet was to escape. If he escaped, then at least his word would be worth something. Plus, he wasn’t sure if it was just Adam and Betsy or if there were more people involved. 

Escaping gave them the best chance of catching everyone associated with this, but was proving to be more difficult than he had originally anticipated. He was trapped between a door that he couldn’t open fast enough without Adam tackling him and Adam, who easily prevented him from getting to the other door with his strength and skill. Usually two doors meant it was easy to escape as people frequently forgot about one of them, but it was not turning out to be that way this time.

Tony had no idea how long they stayed trapped in the battle to get the upper hand. They were still at it, when Tony heard a noise outside. He had no idea if it was reinforcements for him or for Adam. 

He suspected it would be for Adam. It was also possible it was just some nosey person. The chance of Adam going to answer the door and giving him an opening to escape was slim. Things were either going to get a lot better or they were going to go south fast. 

He supposed it was possible that whoever it was might just go away, but he doubted it. There had to be a way to turn this to his advantage. Tony just had to figure out how to do it. 

Adam glanced towards the sound and Tony took advantage of his distraction to swipe his knife across Adam’s side this time he didn’t hesitate to go as deeply as he could. He had a second knife if he lost this one. A nice line of blood started up, but Tony could tell it wasn’t deep enough. Adam glared, but generally ignored the wound in his side. 

“I thought I told you to wait for me,” Betsy spat angrily.

Definitely back up for Adam, then. Tony’s only hope now was to play them against each other. Hopefully they would forget about him and he could escape. 

He didn’t really hold out hope that it would happen, but he was running out of other options. He wasn’t sure what this turn of events would bring for him. Would they work together to rape him? 

Or would it be straight up torture now? Tony had no idea. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t looking to be a good way out of this situation for him. Gibbs’ gut may have been pointing at Adam, but that didn’t mean that Gibbs could actually figure out where Tony was. Based on how he was captured, Tony was going to bet that another commonality between the victims was their decisions to go for a run alone.

Betsy was still yelling at Adam. Tony was doing his best to ignore her, looking for an opening, but now he was trapped with no way to a door without having to go through one of his captors. It seemed like they weren’t seeing eye to eye which was good for him, except they were both super aware of him.

If he even moved a muscle, both of them were focused on him ready to pounce. No one was doing anything about Adam’s wound. Tony hoped that Adam would lose too much blood and lose consciousness, but he knew that was not likely to happen.

Given what Adam had said about the tattoo/mark he’d been given, Tony turned his attention to finding the mark. It turned out to be on his palm, which he hadn’t had visibility to prior to this since it had been tied up behind his back. 

He turned slightly so that they couldn’t see what he was doing and started trying to scrape the tattoo off. He hoped that if he could get the tattoo separated from his skin that he could get all of the aloe out. Being able to change into cat form, could give him the advantage he needed to escape.

It was a slow and painful process to work the knife under the mark and start to pry it off. He was basically doing surgery on himself with a knife. It sucked, but he wasn’t about to just give up and let them do whatever they wanted to him.

Right now, it was looking like his best option for escape. It was painful as heck, but he’d been through worse. Tony kept at it as Betsy and Adam seemed to forget he was there. 

Oh, they hadn’t completely forgotten him. Not enough that he could get away, but they were mostly ignoring him. He was just as happy with that.

They kept glancing at him, but neither had noticed that he was bleeding where the mark had been. Tony thought he finally had all the aloe out of his system. Hoping to take advantage of their distraction, he tried to change into his cat form again.

This time it worked. He breathed a sigh of relief and dashed for the door. The wound he’d given himself was not fixed, but while in this form it wouldn’t continue to bleed out either. 

He knocked Adam down by hitting him in the knees on his way to the door. Betsy was too shocked to do anything. He managed to get the door open and started to head for the woods. 

“DiNozzo!” 

Tony stopped and glanced back at Gibbs before flinching as he realized he’d just confirmed to Gibbs that he really was the cat. He had no idea what would happen now. He couldn’t imagine that it was good and headed for the woods again.

“DiNozzo, Stay!”

Tony sighed and settled at the base of a tree. He knew better than to disobey that voice. Betsy and Adam had tumbled out of the cabin that they’d had him in and Gibbs now had them at gunpoint. 

Betsy had frozen at the sight of Gibbs despite her crazy talk with Tony earlier, which made Tony wonder if she had some kind of dissociative identity disorder going on. Adam, however, wasn’t interested in being arrested. He launched himself at Gibbs with his knife ready to do damage, “I didn’t do anything wrong. They all deserved it.”

Gibbs shot him, hitting him in the shoulder. It did little to stop Adam who immediately tried to get back up. It took him some time to actually make it to his feet, which allowed Gibbs to aim for Adam’s legs and get a shot off.

“DiNozzo! Change back and cuff him.” Gibbs barked, training his weapon on Betsy when it became obvious that Adam couldn’t actually get back up with the new leg wound.

Tony sighed. He knew Gibbs was going to see the bleeding wound and wouldn’t like it. He couldn’t disobey Gibbs, however. 

He changed back and quickly cuffed Adam’s hands behind his back before he could figure out how to stand on only one leg. Gibbs’ gestured to the cabin and Tony left Gibbs in charge of the suspects while he went inside to get some of the rope they’d used on him to use on the deputy sheriff until they had time to get a second pair of cuffs on her. 

The case should be open and shut and if they babbled about Tony being a cat, they would only look crazy in court. However, Tony knew he wasn’t getting away scot free. Gibbs knew for sure he was a cat now and who knew what the fallout from that would be. 

Gibbs must have called in reinforcements or something because the sheriff had turned up by the time Tony got outside with the rope. She’d cuffed Betsy for them, so the rope wasn’t even necessary any longer. It was clear from the discussion between Gibbs and the sheriff that she had no idea that any of this had been going on underneath her nose. 

The deputy sheriff had managed to forget or hide enough evidence pieces that it had been hard to spot the connections between cases. After looking over what Tony had found, she was pretty sure there were a lot more cases that could be linked back to these two. It was obvious that she would be going over all their cases with a fine tooth and comb to make sure these two stood no chance of getting out of jail anytime soon. 

Tony was pretty sure it was personal for her now. He had a sneaking suspicion that this was her way of getting revenge for them killing all these people under her nose. What surprised Tony, however, was that Gibbs didn’t fight her for jurisdiction.

Even though some of the victims were dead Navy officers, Gibbs didn’t even make a token protest. It was weird. When Gibbs ordered Tony to his cabin, he felt like a rock had just sunk to the bottom of his stomach and settled there.

Tony knew that they were going to discuss what Gibbs had found out. He headed towards Gibbs’ cabins expecting the worst. He had already started typing up his resignation letter in his head, positive that Gibbs was going to ask for it now that he’d found out. 

Gibbs did nothing of the sort when Tony arrived, however. He grabbed Tony’s injured hand carefully and led Tony to the sink where he proceeded to clean up the wound Tony had given himself to remove the aloe along with the various other scratches Tony had gotten from the knife fight. Tony had been surprised that cutting the aloe out of his hand had actually worked.

He hadn’t known that aloe prevented the transformation. He would have to do some research when he got home as to whether it could permanently prevent the transformation and whether there were any side effects from that. He could see that there were some benefits to becoming a cat now, but he wouldn’t have been able to get away with transforming if this had been a case the team had been working.

There would have been too great a chance of him being revealed and he was positive that Ziva and McGee would not take it as well. Plus, if it became public that would be a serious issue and he’d probably get kicked out of NCIS. If aloe was a way to prevent him from transforming that had no side effects, he would seriously consider it. 

It would eliminate the need to take vacations just to appease his cat. It would eliminate the chance of him turning into a cat unexpectedly. He couldn’t see any drawback to this plan unless the aloe would affect his human form somehow.

“That was dangerous. You could have bled out.”

“That’s why I was in the cat form. Human me can’t bleed out while I’m a cat.”

“I know.”

“You do?” Tony furrowed his brow.

“Yep.”

Tony blinked as he found himself face to face with a tiger. Tony couldn’t help letting out a laugh. He’d been worried about Gibbs’ reaction, about him demanding his resignation and instead Gibbs was a shifter too.

“You mean your vacations were?”

Gibbs changed back, “Yep.”

“Did you know about me from the beginning?”

“No. Suspected though.”

”Does Shepard know?”

“I don’t think so.”

”Does this change anything at work?”

“Nope.”

“So we good?”

“Nope.”

“What? What more is there to talk about?”

“Your feelings for me.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Tony stared at Gibbs in shock. When did Gibbs figure out he felt more for him than just a boss and why was he bringing it up now?

“I’ve smelt your arousal around me more than once, Tony.”

Tony blushed. “Sorry?”

Gibbs just gave Tony a look. Tony sighed and looked away. He wasn’t ready to talk about this, but he knew Gibbs wouldn’t give up until they’d talked it over.

“How could you tell? That’s beyond human ability.”

“My father taught me as a kid how to use my tiger’s senses while in human form. Did you never learn?”

Tony shook his head. “In fact, I’ve never seen anything useful about being able to turn into a panther given our job and the need to keep that ability secret.”

“Your education is sorely lacking. We’ll stay here a couple more days and I’ll start teaching you everything you need to know about being a shifter.”

“Will this include the effects aloe has on us?”

Gibbs nodded. He stepped closer to Tony and Tony stared at him, not sure what was happening now. Next thing he knew, Gibbs’ lips were on his and his tongue was seeking entrance into his mouth.

Tony stood stock still in shock. He’d never in a million years imagined that Gibbs could like him back. It was only when he started to feel Gibbs pull away that his body kicked into gear and he kissed Gibbs back.

They separated to breathe and Tony panted out, “What does this mean?”

Gibbs just grunted.

“Please, Gibbs. I don’t want to make assumptions about this.”

“I have feelings for you too, Tony.”

“You want a relationship with me or just a one night stand?”

“A relationship.” Gibbs glared and gave Tony a light head smack.

“Right. You’re a marry them kind of guy. You wouldn’t settle for less than everything.”

“Damn straight.”

Tony smiled brightly at Gibbs.

“Now change into your cat form. I’m about to show you the best thing about being able to be a cat.”

Tony raised an eyebrow, but did as Gibbs’ ordered. Gibbs led him to the couch in his cabin in front of the TV. Gibbs turned it on to something mindless and then proceeded to scratch behind Tony’s ears.

Tony had never felt anything so amazing outside of actual sex. He couldn't help wondering what else Gibbs would teach him before they returned to DC. Maybe being a cat wasn’t all bad, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> It's 2019 now and I have closed my 2018 Prompt collection, but fear not my 2019 Prompt Collection is now open [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile). Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. Do not fear I have not forgotten about the 2018 prompts and will continue working through them. It's just easier for me to not get overwhelmed if I keep the prompts separated by the year they were given to me.
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> I do not currently have a discord dedicated to my stories. If anyone would be interested in joining a group chat server that is focused on my stories please comment below. Also, if you would like such a thing what kind of things would you like to know about? Please share those with me.
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


End file.
